


We Three Kings

by Walkietalkie (Write_like_an_American)



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Anal Fisting, Blow Jobs, Breathplay, Brothers, Candles, Choking, F/M, Face-Fucking, Facials, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jealous Rick, Jealousy, Love/Hate, M/M, Merle Ain't Dying, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage, Porn starts chapter 3!, Sibling Incest, Smut, So much switching, Spitroasting, Switching, Threesome - M/M/M, Wax Play, Wet & Messy, choking on cock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:46:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6146533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Walkietalkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dixon brothers share everything. Officer Friendly is no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **This chapter's more of a set-up, because I'm incapable of writing porn-without-plot. Never fear - I'm not abandoning my myriad of WIPs. This is a plot bunny that wouldn't let me go - and as it'll be a while before I get to the sex in _Lost in the Woods_ I needed to sate my lusty loins somehow. You're welcome.**

Rick figures a lot of things have changed since the Walkers came.

Attitudes and opinions for one. When you get tossed in with a bunch of folks from all walks of life and told you get along or you die, the ability to broaden one’s horizons and accept what may have once been repulsive – or at least artfully ignore it – becomes part of the survivor package.

As such, Rick is unsurprised when the racist jackass they left to roast on an Atlanta rooftop vanishes, presumed dead, leaving only a limp white hand. He’d been set in his ways. In an adapting world, that’s practically signing oneself over to natural selection.

The racist jackass’s little brother spits furious with rage and grief. Rick expects him to follow the same path. Their kind’s of a like, and as they say, the apple never falls far.

He’s pleasantly surprised.

Moreso, when Daryl struggles to his feet after falling on his arrow in the woods, and presses a quick kiss to Rick’s cheek. He mutters ‘thanks’ and staggers away before Rick can protest that he has a wife, or worse – reciprocate.

That gruff word means a lot. _Thank you for not shooting me. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for being the leader we need._

And then, after Lori’s… Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Rick’s loved her for years, and will for years still – but even in the depths of his denial, he can’t pretend things haven’t changed between them. (A Shane-shaped wedge, to be precise. It’s the reason he finds himself staring into Judith’s eyes as he rocks her, wondering why they’re brown where his and Lori’s are (were) blue.)

Yet that night, when it’s Rick’s turn to stumble and weep for the one he’d lost, Daryl is there. He doesn’t stop Rick from staggering into the wilderness beyond the fence, or into the bowels of the prison on a mission of intent self-destruction. But he accompanies him. He watches with knowing eyes as Rick puts down walker after walker, cold and mechanical, splattered to his armpits with gore. He sticks an arrow in the temples of any that got too close, unnoticed in Rick’s rampage, and when Rick collapses from exhaustion, he guards his body while he sleeps.

After that, it takes a week for them to fall into bed together. Or rather – bunk. The ones in the prison are old and rickety. They creak if you move too much (or part your legs for a dirt-mottled, shaggy-haired, unsociable redneck, whose sour face twitches on the edge of a smile).

Rick and Daryl compromise by boosting two mattresses onto the floor of a cell far enough from the block that Rick can cry out and Daryl growl in peace. It isn’t that he’s forgotten Lori. Far from it. But in that moment, Rick needs someone. Daryl is there – and obviously has no expectations of attached strings when they draw apart.

However, when Rick squeezes his arm three days later and quietly asks whether he’d like him to return the favour, he catches that half smile again, lurking behind Daryl’s nibbled thumbnail.

After that, it becomes routine. Rick fucks Daryl. Daryl fucks Rick. They find lube and condoms on a run to town, then figure _it’s the end of the world; who gives a fuck_ to the latter. They jerk off and suck off and frot more often than not, learning their bodies until they memorize every scab and mole, and every scar that Daryl flinches from no matter how gently Rick traces them.

Despite their efforts at secrecy, the others notice. How could they not? But it’s a testament to the decimation of society that some of its stupider laws have been whittled away.

Carl’s the only one to outwardly object. He stalks away if Rick lets his hand linger too long on Daryl’s shoulder, or vice versa. The others duck the issue, not wanting to be partisan in the conflict brewing between father and son, but understanding both sides of it.

Rick pegs Hershel as the only one liable to complain about the morality of what he’s doing. But while his eyes narrow whenever Carl slams into his cell and refuses to talk to anyone, the old vet doesn’t voice the thoughts swarming his mind. He doesn’t suggest that Rick should stunt his growing relationship with Daryl to preserve his son’s sense of dignity in having a father and a mother. Nor does he tell Carl he’s cruel and ungrateful for harboring a deepset terror of replacement – that if his mother has gone and his father has another suitor, then what makes _him_ a permanent feature in Rick’s life?

Following Hershel’s example, the group come to a silent agreement: they will let things mature naturally, and heal themselves of their own accord.

And heal things do.

(So thinks Rick with a carefully closed off expression, as he watches Carl smile for what seems like the first time in years.)

In fact, everything is going peachy until the older Dixon swaggers back into their lives.

Merle arrives in much the same way he’d left: noisily, energetically, and with an incessant barrage of insults. Clocking him on the skull feels magnificent – although not enough to make up for the gouge in his chest when Daryl makes his allegiance clear. That’s soon fixed though, of Daryl’s own will. He returns to the prison, cold and furious, his brother trailing him like a lost pitbull-mutt. And with each of Daryl’s long strides, the shadow clouding Rick’s future erodes, just slightly.

 

* * *

 

Now though, Rick senses that shadow return.

It swamps in slow and steady. In increments. A gradual inundation of darkness, as if the gloom itself has substance: thick and viscous as tar, engulfing every shard of light. The flow swells as Merle and Daryl take their customary seats besides one another and start stealing scraps from each other’s bowls while the group looks on in placid acceptance.

That’s why Rick’s contemplating how attitudes have been altered by necessity. That’s why he’s afraid of that fresh, bright gleam in Carl’s eyes; the beam on his face as he dandles Judith and makes her giggle by blowing a raspberry against her belly.

Because the brothers share everything.

Food, water, clothes. Even kills sometimes: Rick watches from afar as Merle’s prosthetic blade slides home into a biter’s rot-softened skull, Daryl’s knife alongside. Juices burble from the ruptured bone at the apex of their twinned penetration. When Daryl and Merle withdraw and allow the walker to sag on the fence like a bloated flour-sack, broad shoulders heaving and sweat shimmering on their biceps like salt in the sun, their eyes meet.

The air sizzles.

Rick, the unseen voyeur in the watch tower, has to glance away.

He can’t avert his gaze for long though. They move in tandem when they fight, a synchrony as brutal as it’s graceful, reminding Rick of hunting lions. He knows, logically, that the females of the pride are the ones to drag home the carcasses of their prey, but there’s nothing but raw masculine power to the Dixons; it’s ingrained in their build, their sleek and solid muscle, the mobile liquidity of their movements that testifies to a lifetime of guarding each other’s back.

However, when Merle spins and Daryl swoops under his bladed arm, moving clumsier than usual as his eyes clock it and he  _remembers_ all they’ve gone through and all Merle’s lost, he almost trips and falls against the grilled wire, beyond which a hundred hungry fingers claw and reach. A shout spurts up Rick’s throat. A warning. A revelation of himself – for he doesn’t believe the brothers have noticed him, or if they have, they don’t much care.

It sticks halfway. Merle grabs the collar of Daryl’s shirt, yanking him rearwards and cackling like a hyena on nitrogen. He tugs Daryl mockingly close to the Walkers, and scrubs a noogie into his greasy brown hair.

“You gone pussy on me, Darylina?” he crows. “That sheriff gone done you wrong, if he letchu get soft.”

Rick’s teeth itch. He only realizes his fists have clenched when the muscles in his forearms set up an aching protest. He’s done more by Daryl than Merle ever has.

Nevertheless, he can’t bring himself to swing down the tower and demand Daryl defend him. Any will to do so is quashed when Daryl ducks out of the grip and delivers a fond open-hand smack to the back of Merle’s head, over the bruise from Rick’s pistol-whip. “He’s alright,” he says, as Merle yelps and spins to glare. “Y’get used to him.”

High praise indeed. Rick glowers at his knees until his pulse isn’t deafening. Then scoots on his ass to look out of the other window. He watches the sunset, the blushing mutable sky, as the brothers sling arms around each other’s waists in a gesture too intimate for camaraderie and stalk to the fence to finish their slaughter.

 

* * *

 

Daryl’s not in his cell that night. Neither’s Merle.

Rick tells himself it’s coincidence, but Carl’s smiling again and everyone else in the bunker is talking in hushed whispers, refusing to meet his eyes.  Daryl and Merle ate together again. The image weighs in Rick’s mind like an anchor-bound cannonball: Merle’s boots propped on Daryl’s lap as he swung himself sideways on the bench, chattering in that obnoxious, infuriating way of his as he gobbled the contents of his own bowl and started nicking chunks from Daryl’s as his brother stabbed his fork at his fingers but never aimed to hit.

Rick hadn’t seen them leave – had been too busy swallowing a lump that had nothing to do with the chunks in the venison stew. But they’re nowhere to be found, and suddenly Rick has to ensure his fears are ridiculous, that he’s being paranoid and foolish and still wrought dumb by Lori’s… passing. Really, he should be _pleased_ Daryl’s finding comfort in his brother and keeping him out of trouble (just about, anyway). Jealousy’s for children. So he tells himself, as he kisses Carl’s forehead and bids him goodnight.

“Where’re you going?” asks Carl, shrinking under the brim of his hat in embarrassment. Rick chuckles and pushes it over his face, making his son huff.

“Out,” he lies. “Want some fresh air. Anyone’s welcome to join – I ain’t goin’ far.”

No one takes him up on the offer.

And rather than heading for the watch towers, Rick doubles back on himself the moment he’s out of sight and makes for the cell he and Daryl once shared.

 

* * *

 

The cells in this part of the prison are darker: lightless and airless now electricity and ventilation are things of the past. They have doors rather than bars, a shuttered window over each one that can only be opened from the outside. The automatic locks don’t work anymore, so there’s no fear of being trapped – but the steel is hefty, and Rick realizes too late that if the brothers have opted for full privacy, there’s no way he can spy – or eavesdrop – without them noticing.

It’s a disappointment, when he finds the weighted slab propped on a jam that’s been whittled from a walker’s discarded femur. The door’s open. There’s no excuse to retreat, and the only way to go is forwards.

A little sun creeps through a skylight. It casts shadows, but the surrounds are so grimy and dark to begin with that Rick pays his little heed. Crouching he steals forwards, honing his ears. He’s sickly fascinated to know what might be occurring in that room where he and Daryl first tasted each other’s bodies, ran their calloused palms over chiselled chests and hairy flanks, arched and thrust against one another, and spilt in daze-eyed mutual bliss.

If Merle’s taken that from them, Rick doesn’t know what he’ll do. The fingers that are stroking his knife hilt of their own accord seem to have an idea, but Rick quashes it, remembering how Lori’s loss had bored a hole through his grip on reality and determining that he will never fall prey to the fickle comfort of fantasy again. No matter what lays ahead, he’ll weather it a sane man. He has a responsibility to the group, to Carl especially. And the Dixons are their best fighters, after all.

But damn, if there were only a way to scoot Merle to Woodbury. Then Rick could wipe Daryl’s mind of his brother’s infection, and things would go back to the way they had been.

First thing he hears are voices. He thanks God that it’s not smacking squelches, horny moans. They’re too low to make out – the brothers’ tessitura may dive below his, but whatever they’re saying right now it’s all chesty rumble, dredged from the very bottom of their vocal register. He recognizes it. It’s the sound of men hoarse after a fight or a fuck.

As he can’t smell semen on the air (he sniffs to make sure, then wipes his nose, ashamed) he assumes it’s the former.

Perhaps he’s misjudged. Of course Daryl will want to spend time with Merle – it’s been over a year since they saw each other, and even the indomitable hope that had spurred Daryl to comb the woods for Sophia right up until the discovery of her groaning corpse had waned. Rick knows Daryl gave Merle up for dead, at least subconsciously.

Suddenly uncomfortable, he falters in his approach. He may well be intruding. This could be plain old sibling bonding – Daryl took his brother here to expend energy, in a different way to that which he and Rick have become accustomed to.

(And Rick _knows_ that’s crazy and desperate, because this room has one very specific purpose. But it’s better to imagine that Daryl’s somehow mislaid that purpose, than to suspect that he and Merle merely have yet to begin.)

Life isn’t that kind.

“So,” asks Merle, drawing out the vowel until it dips into a languid yawn. He’s sprawled on the mattresses – _their_ mattresses. His nearest boot’s visible in the hinge-studded crack between door and frame. “You find someone t’fuck ya when I was gone?”

“Yeah,” mutters Daryl. Rick can imagine him: chewing his thumb, blinking at the ceiling with his thin brown eyes. “You?”

There’s a low snicker. “Oh _yeah_. Governor’s got a nice fat cock in his pants – and knows how to use it, too. Wouldn’t think it, wouldya? I mean, lookit that crazy white-collar! Fucks mighty good for wetnose though; he screwed me better than you ever did.”

There’s a short pause. _Deny it_ , Rick pleads. _Laugh it off. Anything_. But instead, when Daryl next speaks, it’s all husk and growl, of a timbre with Rick after a hangover. “You wanna bet?"

Merle _purrs_. “You got somethin’ to prove, baby brother, you better get provin’ it.” Rick hears him push to his feet. The mattress springs creak as he digs in his bare toes for balance. Rick doesn’t need visuals in order to picture him: grizzled and muscular, one balled fist and one stump, smirking like he’s got the world laid out at his feet. But his gut clenches when he hears Daryl move to match him.

“Yer gonna regret that,” says Daryl, and springs.

He rolls Merle to the floor, catching his brother off-balance. Grunts as Merle crunches upright and _twists_ , reversing their positions in an animal pounce. Daryl yips, struggles, claws and bites. Then rams his elbow into Merle’s sternum and flips them _again_ , pinning his brother on his belly.

Rick doesn’t stay a moment longer. Not when he’s heard Merle’s breathy pant (“Ya got me, bro; I give!”) and the rasp of Daryl’s unzipping fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Oh my god. I forgot how much I fucked up the tenses on this. It's sorted now - hopefully. Ah, the marvels of proof reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In which Rick smooths things over. Sort of.**

The brothers pad in next morning, not bothering to stagger their arrivals. It wouldn’t matter anyway. If the evidence doesn’t register with the group, Rick’s hyper aware of every damning article – the hickey visible above Daryl’s collar where neck junctures chest, his mussed and rumpled hair, Merle’s limp.

That’s exaggerated for his benefit; the wink confirms it.

It was stupid, Rick realizes, to assume that they wouldn’t notice the scrape of a shoe over cold concrete floors. They’re goddam woodsman. Half-wild: probably weaned on squirrel meat. Of course they know he was there. And while Daryl’s dodging confrontation, a quiet sullen presence that lingers in his brother’s shadow, Merle’s not going to be so kind.

Perhaps he ought to do something about that.

Rick presses the back of his hand to his face and finds his cheeks warm – strange, when he feels so cold and hateful inside. Thing is, he’s not deluded as to his capacity to be cruel. He’s utilized that sadistic streak on several occasions; the one he keeps battened under the duties afforded to the Last Good Cop in a Big Bad World. He could see Merle kicked out, never to return. It’d be simple. Get him in close enough proximity to meth, and the problem would sort itself. Yes, Rick could destroy him, he knows – and it’s somehow terrifying and exhilarating all at once, how a part of him revels in that power. If it weren’t for the plan’s inherent flaw, his conscience might actually shut up long enough to allow him to be tempted.

Any damage done to Merle is not without collateral.

Daryl would follow him. Daryl will always follow him. Merle could be frothing at the mouth, high off his head on dope and coke and crystal, what few higher brain functions he boasts rotted into chemical disarray. And Daryl would still choose him over Rick, every time.

Like now, for instance.

Daryl grabs Merle’s arm, attempting to steer him to the far corner of the room; he’s obviously sensed Rick’s mood. Rather than defusing it, he’s dedicating his energies to preventing a punch-up that’ll see his brother outlawed. (Wise. But in that moment, Rick can’t help but remember the wordless comfort Daryl had extended to him in those putrid, stinking tunnels after he lost Lori; the weak light of their torch catching on the wings stitched on his jacket like those of a Guardian angel. Knowing that jacket originally belonged to Merle only makes the hurt worse.)

Sure enough, Merle breaks the grip. He’s got a chipped pewter bowl hooked in the curve of a too-short arm. After leering his thanks to Carol, he lopes the entire length of the airy central atrium – “Aw hell,” mutters Daryl – to crash his sloppy breakfast grits opposite Rick.

Rick, imagining drowning him in it, doesn’t bat an eye.

Not to be deterred, Merle swings himself atop the table. His grimy army-issue boots thump the bench seat. He towers over Rick, brute strength displayed with an ease that could swing towards erotic or hostile at a second’s notice, and smirks in his face. This close, Rick can make out the swelling on his lips. The bruises are faint, only there if you’re looking for them, but Rick knows they’ll blossom more over the course of the day: as if Merle had mashed his mouth to Daryl’s as his baby brother pumped him full, but forgotten the difference between a kiss and a headbutt.

“Ya gonna finish that?” he asks, waggling his stump at Rick’s half-finished portion.

Slowly, mechanically, Rick lifts the spoon to his mouth. He swallows, tasting nothing. Drops the spoon, and lifts it again. He stares at Merle the whole time. Unlike him, he doesn’t need words and posture to issue a challenge.

Merle looks delighted. “Why Officer Friendly! F’I didn’t know better, I’d think ya didn’t like me.”

Rick pretends not to notice the way the hushed conversation in the room fades. He quietly finishes his grits, stands, picks up his bowl, and motions to Merle’s. “You done?” he repeats.

It’s infuriating, when Merle’s grin grows.

“Nah yer good. Thanks for offerin’ though – really appreciate it. I’ll holler next time I need maid service.” Rick nods, glacial. He walks away. Dumps his bowl atop the pile for washing – the clack rings loud, the only breach in the silence beyond Merle’s noisy chewing. “Thank you, Carol,” he says, measured and soft. Her face is creased with pity. Rick wants none of it.

Besides her, Beth plasters on a sunny smile. “We’re taking Judith for a walk,” she says. “Babies need sunlight. Would you like to come?” Carl peeks from under the hat brim with a mixture of suspicion and hope. Leaning on his crutch in the background, Hershel inclines his head, all somber approval.

So. This is what they want. Him to ‘reconnect’ with his family. Keep wallowing in Lori’s death as per Carl’s silent demand – and Rick’s man enough to admit that a part of him wants that too. But he fears that if he ever gives in to it, he’ll never crawl up from that nadir. They have every right to want him to forget about Daryl and crush his compulsion to plant his fist smack at the centre of Merle’s filthy grin, to be the leader and father they need him to be. But Rick’s starting to think that he can’t play that part alone. That it’s better for everyone – _safer_ for everyone – if that burden’s shared. Daryl’s been the one to shoulder it besides him, whether as a brother-in-arms or lover-in-bed; but now those two fields have become intertwined, Rick doesn’t believe he’ll ever disentangle them.

Whenever he’s close to Daryl, he’ll want. Whenever he fights besides Daryl, he’ll need. Whenever he sees him touch his brother – punch his shoulder, bump fists before a battle, roll and wrestle and playfight like cubs then fuck until the sun comes up – he’ll lust and he’ll yearn. And, if he’s not careful, that yearning will translate to hatred.

It’s already occurring with Merle – he can feel it happen. But if Rick alienates Daryl completely (and he can’t see any other way out of this than to do just that) they’re all likely dead before the month is through. Something else needs to occur. They – the three of them – need to find a new peace, a compromise.

Rick forces dry spit down his aching throat, and averts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Carl’s disappointment. “You go on,” he croaks. “Might join you in a bit.”

Carl stares. Scowls. Takes his sister from Beth, who gurgles with that peculiar empathy of infants and reaches for Rick over his shoulder, and marches for the door. “C’mon,” he calls to the others. “Let’s go.”

One by one they file past him, even those who hadn’t originally planned on a stroll. They’re smarter than he gives them credit for; if he was in their shoes, he wouldn’t want to be in this room either. Heck, _Rick_ doesn’t especially want to be here. But what’s gotta be said has gotta be said. If he wants this to work – if Merle and Daryl want this to work – cooperation is mandatory.

“So,” he says, once the echo of their footsteps has faded and it’s just them and the steam from the pot of cooling grits. His voice cracks on the word. He forces it steady. “Figure we gotta lot to talk about.”

Merle snorts, hoovering up the last of his breakfast. Swallows, burps, wipes his mouth on his wrist, and pushes to his feet. “Ain’t much’ve one for natter,” he says. It’s the most brazen lie Rick’s ever seen someone spout with a straight face. “You wanna say something, spit it out.”

“Merle,” says Daryl. He steps forwards, gaining detail as he comes into the light, and Rick’s lungs lurch up his throat at the familiarity of the frown on his lips and the worry in his shrewd hazel eyes. “Quit it.”

“Or what, lil’ bro? Don’t tell me you’d rather him keep lookin’ at me like I’m something he scraped off his sheriff-boots –“

“All I want,” says Rick, pitching his voice to the exact timbre that will slice the rising tirade, “is peace. For me. For you. For our group. For us to work as a unit.” He takes a breath. Sees Merle do the same – and hastily continues, before the man has time to consolidate his next antagonistic ploy. “You two got each other. But that’s a power imbalance, don’t you see? We gotta get along, us three together, if we ever want to make something outta this place. For these people –“

“I don’t give two shits about these people,” Merle announces, which isn’t exactly unexpected. He slings his arm over Daryl’s shoulders – they’re of a height, and almost of a build when they stand besides each other; tough and fit and deadly. But the callous grin on Merle’s face couldn’t be further from Daryl’s nervous gnaw on his thumb. “They ain’t _our_ people. Right, Darylina?”

Daryl gives his answer a thorough mulling. “They ain’t _your_ people,” he says eventually, and rolls out from under his brother’s meaty arm. He might as well have smacked him. Daryl doesn’t come stand by Rick – would be nice, but Merle’s already bristling and despite his wolfish smile Rick’s been around enough thugs to know he’s an instant away from transitioning to the language he knows best: fists. This is getting more dangerous by the second.

Rick lets tension unwind from his shoulders, hoping Merle’ll follow his lead. “Thank you,” he says. Tentatively steps towards them, hands limp at his sides, aware of the perceived threat should he give in to the urge to ball them. “Now, if we can talk our, uh, situation through…”

“Our ‘situation’,” Merle mimics, a whole octave higher than usual. It’s not just mockery; he looks a little strangled, as if the fact Daryl’s agreed to hear Rick out rather than siding with Merle on everything is percolating his thick skull. “Our ‘situation’ bein’ that you rode my brother’s ass back while all y’all fuckers had given me up for dead. And now yer actin’ pissy about it, as if you were a damn _married couple_ –“

“I mean,” says Rick with admirable patience, although he feels pressure bud behind his eyes, “that we need to work out leadership. Who follows orders, from whom, and so forth. Professionally.”

“You lead,” comes Daryl’s peaceable answer, at the precise moment Merle spits a fat gobbit at his feet and growls “Fuck you, Officer Friendly; I ain’t bowing to no one.”

Rick holds up his hands. “And there’s our problem.”

“So it’s down t’me and you.” Merle leers, eyelids lowering to a taunting half-mast. “C’mon then, police boy. Lemme see whatchu got.”

No – this is what he needs to avoid. If Rick gets a whiff of violence, he’ll lose his fragile control. Then he'll pummel Merle to a pulp – or shoot him, as he doubts a bare knuckle match would go in his favour despite Merle’s handicap. Then Daryl will leave, and all Rick will have accomplished is to burn down everything he’s built.

“Not like that,” he says, before Daryl can wrestle between them. He steps back, not so much a retreat as a neutralization. Merle’d have to chase him to land a blow. If he’s looking to goad Rick into a fight, Rick’s not going play along – Merle’ll either have to throw the first punch and revoke his stake in their grudge match, or cool off.

Rick watches him waver. Savors the blur of _power_ and _pleasure_ in his central nervous system, as Merle settles on the latter.

So he _can_ be swayed. Unfortunately, Merle’s many things but stupid isn’t one – at least, not as stupid as he’d have a casual onlooker believe. He realizes when he’s been manipulated. His lip curls, smile ceding to snarl, and he spits again – at the both of them – before turning tail and marching out. “Fuck him then,” he calls. “I guess I’ll go play happy families outside.”

Aw heck. They’d better go after him – in this mood, Merle’ll have the whole camp baying for his blood within five minutes.

Sighing, Rick shoots Daryl a quick smile, caught in the midst of relieved and exasperated. And finds Daryl watching him with head cocked to one side, dark hair spilling down his neck. He’s got that curious beadiness to his eyes that Rick associates with blackbirds.

“Why you making this a competition?” he asks.

That’s not a question Rick’s expecting. He blinks a moment, dumb. Then wets his lips – “Uh, this isn’t?”

Daryl’s stare speaks for itself.

“You’re kidding. You saw what went down – it was him starting the fight, not me!”

“Takes two,” says Daryl, with an infuriating sageness that reminds Rick of his mother-in-law. Then, before Rick can defend himself – “You act hurt, Merle’s gonna push buttons. S’what he does.”

Rick shuts his mouth. Opens it again, piecing the words together only once he’s certain they’re in the right order while Daryl fidgets and kicks his feet in the accumulated dust that Carol insists they sweep to the corners of the cellblock every other day. “You’re saying… I don’t just have to disengage from the physical fights. That I have to… not be hurt? By what he’s… what he’s _doing_ , with you?”

Daryl’s shrug is spiky and closed-off. Rick senses the underlying nervousness there. Daryl knows he’s asking a big boon, that or he’s picked up on the shrill incredulity in Rick’s voice.

Because he _can’t_ just forget. He can’t. It’s bad enough that the group try and force his hand with Carl and Judith; for _Daryl_ to collaborate is plain cruel…

“Nah,” Daryl mumbles, voice becoming less distinct as his embarrassment increases. “You gotta quit making it a competition when it _ain’t_. Cause Merle’ll play along t’piss you off, and it’ll only get worse –“

“It’s not a competition? Why, dammit?” _Because he’s already won?_

Daryl’s blank expression is broken by an eyeroll. “S’right, dumbass,” he says. “Me ’n’ Merle are with each other til the end. But if he were the only guy I fucked I’d shoot myself within the week.”

Great. So the only space left in his life for Rick is _mistress_. It’s all kinds of tragic and pathetic that Rick’s willing to agree, if he’ll only be allowed to touch him again. Daryl reads the thought and amends himself.

“Uh, I mean. We’re two parts. Get one, get the other. And if I want you t’have both, so’ll Merle. Just… give ‘im time. And don’t be fooled by none of his stupid games, yeah?”

Games Daryl has been playing for a helluva lot longer than Rick. A whiff of sense orders Rick’s cluttered thoughts: _I want you t’have both._

Oh.

_Oh._

Rick feels his way to the nearest bench. There’s trepidation there – a helluva lot of it, shaped like a muscular, loudmouthed one-armed redneck – but he’d be lying if he claimed it wasn’t edged with arousal. This is a chance to have Daryl again. Genuinely. Truly. His _partner_.

He can work out where Merle fits into the equation at a later date. And if the thought of the older Dixon spreading his ass for him like he’d prepped himself for his brother last night doesn’t exactly _banish_ turgidity from his cock…

Well. So be it.

_Have them both._

“Dammit,” Rick repeats, and this time it’s wondering.

 

* * *

 

They go to extract Merle before he can stir up more trouble, and find him in a heated debate with Carol about why it is or isn’t his prerogative to assign to them whatever nicknames he sees fit (including ‘bitch’, ‘cunt’, ‘rugmuncher’, ‘old git’, ‘wrinkles’, ‘chink’ and ‘chinaman’; the latter being despite (or possibly due to) Glenn’s adamant reaffirmations that he’s actually Korean). Daryl sighs and barges their shoulders together.

“C’mon.”

“Why, you done screwin’ the pig?”

Rick, hovering at the outliers of the group, leaves the brewing argument to find Carl. His son’s got Judith cradled in a way too practiced for a fourteen year old boy. The guilt in Rick’s chest gnaws when he reaches to take her and Carl wordlessly angles her away. Okay. He’s gonna have to deal with this, at some point. But perhaps now isn’t the best time.

Moving slow, as if Carl’s liable to spook and sprint for the woods, Rick crouches to get himself on his level. “Can I tell her I love her?” he asks. The hoarse creak of his voice is almost swept away by the wind. But, when an entire minute has elapsed and Rick’s starting to wonder if Carl’s heard, he nods and presents Judith’s soft little forehead for a kiss.

“Thank you,” breathes Rick. He strokes her cheek, delighted by the gurgle and toothless smile, and presses his lips to it. “Daddy loves you, babygirl. Don’t you forget it.”

The last isn’t directed only to Judith. Carl senses it. He stiffens – then relaxes, and allows Rick another thirty seconds of chucking Judith’s chin and smiling as she gurgles and drools on the fingertip, before pushing to his feet, nodding, and shuffling away.

Rick cups a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the morning sun. Daryl comes to stand beside him. When Rick glances to his other side, he finds Merle there: a smirking sentinel, caught shamelessly mid-ogle.

“Well, he does have a mighty fine ass,” he announces, and Rick pinches the skin between his eyes, knowing Carl is not yet out of earshot. “Whatchu say we get makin’ this official?” He points. The digit that traipses from himself, to Rick, to Daryl and back again, elaborates on what this ‘this’ is that Merle’s jabbering about. Tearing his gaze from his son, Rick turns to Daryl – falters a moment, and realigns his position so Merle’s included his gaze.

“Alright,” he says, and knows from Daryl’s soft smile that it’s the right thing to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I keep saying the next chapter will be porn, and this time I mean it. It's gonna be yummy.**
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> **Please comment!**
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> ****


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Praise the lord! Ladies, gentlemen, and others, I am pleased to announce that we have porn.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Utter filth**

If the room’s tight with two, three’s a crowd. Rick tells himself he’ll get used to it.

They found candles on a run a coupla weeks back; they’re the big white waxy ones that last for hours, and they’ve commandeered enough from the stores that they can shut the door and still be able to fuck without risking poking any eyes out. Daryl taps two flints over them. He repeats the action until the first’s lit before kissing its wick to the next, meditatively tranquil while the flames light his rough jaw from below.

Merle passes his palm back and forth through the fiery tongue and sniggers. No doubt he’s amused by the overlay of romantic honeymoon-suite on drab grey prison cell.

The two of them are crouched side by side, candlelight glinting off their cheekbones and highlighting their curiously dissimilar bone structure. Daryl’s eyes, opalescent with flecks of reflected gold, contrast with Merle’s solid liquid amber as they turn to him in eerie synchrony. “Well?” Daryl murmurs, passing the last candle between his hands. “How d’you want us?”

Rick’s used to being center of attention. He may not have asked to be leader of their ragtag group, but he’s grown into the role like a goldfish tipped from a bowl into a pond. Nevertheless, with the Dixons’ eyes throwing back the light like those of hunting cats – they’re not even ogling, just quietly demanding he issue his commands – Rick winces under a sudden self-conscious onslaught. Is he really going to do this?

_Both brothers. At once._

“Aw, c’mon sheriff.” Tired of waiting, Merle pushes to his feet, patting his crouched brother’s shoulder as he passes. His gaze is fixed on Rick, sultry and crinkled from the breadth of his smirk. When he takes in the way Rick holds himself (too stiff, overcompensating for the fact it feels as if Merle’s herding him into a corner) that smirk becomes a leer. “Don’tchu wear that face. You ain’t walkin’ no green mile.”

“Per’aps you oughta warm him up?” Daryl suggests. He’s studious in his concentration as he tilts the candle this way and that, wax loosening from around the wick in fluid drools. Merle stops with his nose an inch from Rick’s, close enough to count the pores. Tilts his head to assess him. Rick’s half surprised he’s not ordered to open his mouth so Merle can check his teeth.

“What does he like?”

“Being talked about as if he’s in the room,” Rick says. He’s rewarded with a whipcrack laugh. “You on your knees, for a start.”

“Now yer talkin’.” Merle closes the gap so his rumbly laugh wobbles through Rick and into the wall behind. His cock isn’t fully hard – neither’s Rick’s – but he suspects that’ll be fixed sooner rather than later.

He doesn’t reciprocate when Merle kisses him. He’s rougher than Daryl, tugging his underlip until blood blisters beneath the surface. But when he doesn’t win any waver from Rick’s placid stare (beyond its cross-eyed attempt to focus at proximity) he reverts to ghosting his lips across Rick’s, giving the sensitive skin no choice but to register the swollen, bruised puff where Daryl must have chomped him the night before.

Rick shoves him away.

“This isn’t your knees,” he says. Merle shrugs. Refusing to retreat, he uses his greater weight to keep Rick against the dusty wall. He lowers himself though. Slowly. Infinitely so: it’s a sensual grind from chest to toe. Their jeans rub, buckles and buttons catching, denim scraping the bare skin of Merle’s belly. By the time Merle mouths at his tenting crotch, Rick’s panting, sweating, burying his fingers in wiry grey hair to steady himself.

His tongue is warm and wet. Rick can feel it – spit dampening the denim without soaking through. Merle flattens it along the zipper, following the outwards bulge. When he gets to the head he sucks it into his mouth, best as he can through the material, wicked eyes glinting at Rick the whole time.

He’s so engrossed in Merle’s ministrations – both of them are – that when Daryl saunters over they don’t notice him until he’s shoving Merle’s temple to one side, getting his head out the way so he can tug Rick’s zipper down with his teeth.

After that, they both notice him _intensely_.

Rick notices because Daryl’s mouth is on him (it might as well have been years, and hell if he doesn’t almost finish there and then: paint Daryl’s thin lips cloudy white). Merle, because his brother’s hogging their new toy.

“Share,” he demands. Daryl narrows his eyes at him, lips cresting Rick’s purpling tip. He dots a peck right there, on the urethra’s sensitive divot, and Rick’s pulse stutters. He swallows his moan, congratulating himself on battening the embarrassing noise inside his throat.

It doesn’t last.

Next moment Daryl’s chapped mouth retreats. He sits to Rick’s left and Merle to his right. They grin at each other, divided by the throbbing prick. That’s pronging almost vertically, precum painting the head shiny maroon. Then the brothers lean in, twinned and devious, to lap up the sides of the shaft.

Rick forgets how to breathe.

Two slick tongues, working him over. It’s the hottest thing he’s seen.

Merle and Daryl are making out as much as they’re servicing him: one suckles the tip while the other delves below to roll his balls around his mouth and feel out the testicles with his tongue; then they switch, mouths meeting sloppy and spit-smeared like spinning magnets repeatedly drawn together at the poles. Daryl’s first to do more than tease. He plunges down Rick’s shaft with warm familiarity, coming to a stop with his nose an inch from the musky black pubic hair. When tonguing the diameter of Rick’s cockroot proves too difficult with Daryl’s chin in the way, Merle withdraws, not bothering to wipe the saliva from his jaw. It shines in the candlelight like tree sap. Rick focuses on it, somewhat desperately, as Merle rests a broad palm on Daryl’s crown and eases him the rest of the way.

Lips graze Rick’s groin. It’s electric, like wildfire in his veins. Daryl gurgles, throat spasming as it bears the intrusion and zipper-teeth grazing his cheeks, and Merle’s dark chuckle cuts through Rick’s quickening pants. He wants to thrust. He needs to. But Daryl’s on as far as he can go, and with Merle’s hand pinning them both and Rick’s ass squashed against the wall, there’s simply no way to _move_.

“Bastard,” he hisses, eyes rolling to whites as he hears Daryl choke. “Let him breath, fuck –“

“I know what he can take.” Merle shifts to pin Daryl’s head between them with his hips alone. His fly’s still zipped, pants slung low on his muscular waist. His erection is trapped diagonally-upright; he groans in throaty relief when he bares it to the air, and pushes his thighs against Daryl’s shoulderblades to prevent him wriggling free while he ruts it along the parting of his little brother’s hair. “Now.” He smirks at Rick, charmingly mischievous. Grinds forwards, mashing Daryl’s face into Rick’s crotch with little care for his ragged snorts and swallows. “Tell me that ain’t nice.”

It is. Hell, it really, really is…

Rick tosses his head, crown smacking wall. Sweat trickles down his throat, following the bulging tendons, and Merle leans over his choking brother to taste it before it can pool.

“He don’t have much of a gag reflex,” he murmurs, angling his pelvis to allow Daryl a scant inch to breath. Daryl goes with it, throat rippling as it gives up Rick’s cock. His lips drag and skid, stretched so far they can’t quite cover his teeth. The hint of incisor that cusps the pulsepoint makes Rick swear and grip the wall.

“But,” Merle continues, assessing his reactions with undisguised lust. “If ya know whatcher doin’…”

He shunts Daryl forwards again. Digs his lone hand under him, gripping his chin to prop his jaws at the widest, most painful extremity – Daryl whimpers, the spasms of his throat tugging Rick’s cock – and presses the heel of his hand into his trachea. He tilts Daryl until the smooth, sword-swallowing sweep of his neck crooks. Rick’s cockhead scratches the rear of his oesophagus, mashing uvula into palate, and Daryl’s panicked swallows turn to gags.

“There,” purrs Merle. Holds them together a moment longer, eyes on Rick – tormenting him with the urge to spill, to choke Daryl further. Rick, shuddering and palsied, presses his knuckles against his lips and lets his eyes drift shut. He knows he should call this off, order Merle to release his brother and revoke his place in this whole damned exchange. But Daryl’s hands are resting on his thighs. They’re not pushing. They’re not clawing. Even as he fights to keep his stomach contents where they belong, his expression’s oddly serene.

When Merle releases him, using his grip on Daryl’s jaw to heave him free, Daryl coughs, spits and hacks, rubbing lips that must feel like raw distended rubber, then turns to pin him with a glare.

“Yer gonna regret that,” he promises. It’s dark and cold, a tone he’s never used on Rick. If he weren’t on the cusp of bursting from the temperature change as Daryl released him to the cool cell air, he might have shrivelled.

If anything, it has the opposite effect on Merle.

Sure, he and Daryl aren’t as long as Rick – although there’s not much in it. But they’ve got a daunting girth, and Merle’s swells as Daryl stands, wiping spit on his forearm, and squares his shoulders, leering in his older brother’s face. They’re close enough to share breath. Merle smirks, unresisting as his brother takes his prick in a bruising hold, somehow pliant and defiant all at once.

Meanwhile Rick fights to balance, unmoored by the abrupt lack of Merle’s weight, and tries not to feel forgotten. Daryl’s saliva has painted his prick shimmering gold, candlelight smoothing colour and veined texture into something near-metallic. He groans when he wraps his hands around it, figuring that if the brothers won’t pay him attention he’ll see to his need himself.

That’s the cue they need. They break apart as one. “Next time, baby bro,” Merle promises, all husk. “You an’ the cop can hurt me jus’ the way ya like.”

The deal’s sealed with Daryl’s brisk nod. Rick fists his spit-smeared cock, trying to preserve a fraction of the warmth from Daryl’s mouth. He squeezes the tip, knowing what suits him best, twisting his hand at the extremity of every rapid stroke. Eyes shut, breath heaving from his open mouth, he doesn’t realize the brothers have resumed their original kneeling position until Daryl peels his fingers away. Then his glare is all accusation. If they’re not going to get him off, surely they can let him jerk it in peace?

“Aw, pig’s feelin’ all neglected.” Merle takes a firm grip of the base, pinching the blood-thick flesh in a cockring of calloused skin. His laugh gushes hot air, alighting every nerve. “Oughta stick a lil’ sheriff hat on the end, don’tcha think, Darylina?”

“Quit being weird,” Daryl mutters. His lips are split at the edges, (which has no right to be as hot as it is) and his voice has a new croak as he massages out his sore neck. “You want him t’go soft before he cums on our faces?”

As if he has any chance of going flaccid after hearing _that_.

Rick cusses, words bordering nonsense, and bucks in Merle’s hold. When that grasp’s swapped out for two mouths he almost gives in there and then. Rick’s jeans are urged further down his thighs, so the brothers can access him however they please. A finger traces his perineum. It circles his hole, not pushing in but stroking the sensitive pucker until it softens. He can’t tell whose, and honestly, right now he doesn’t care – but the question’s answered when he cranes over his sweating chest to find them sprawled together: Merle straddling Daryl, sandwiching cocks with one hand each and grinding with animalistic abandon as they suck and slurp at Rick’s.

Given Merle’s got no appendages to spare, that narrows the culprit down.

Rick’s orgasm is crashing towards him. It’s a rising orchestral crescendo, a percussionist’s mallet raised over a cymbal in preparation for the final strike, and Rick knows the oncoming blow will concave it. He just prays his knees are up to the challenge – because if he collapses on the brothers, Merle’ll mock him for the rest of their days.

As if hearing his thoughts, they kiss either side of the glossy purple bulb. When Daryl sneaks his tongue under to tease the circumcision scar as Merle brushes his prickly cheek on the length, Rick can’t withhold another second.

Daryl hums, tasting the throb of arteries that are holding Rick turgid. He considers signing to Merle – before shrugging and deciding jizz in the eye’s some small recompense for what his brother has put him through. He closes his, shadows clinging spiderlike to the underside of his lashes. Retreats a little way. Darts around to chase Merle’s mouth, and holds him in the line of fire as Rick’s hips stutter and his abdomen cramps and he bathes their faces in cum.

If it’s revenge Daryl’s after, he’s disappointed.

Merle groans as hot salty ropes coat him eyebrows to chin. Plenty splatters Daryl too. It gums them together as they continue to kiss, eager and earnest, creamy ribbons mapping their stubble and dribbling into their hungry mouths.

Rick, vision fizzling, secures a snapshot in his memory. Not that he thinks he’ll be forgetting this sight any time soon: the Dixon brothers white painted, scented with his seed as they seek their own releases in one another’s hands. He wrings his last silvery drops. The bliss is overwhelming, and Rick stays standing with willpower alone as his cum twinkles in the candlelight, passed between Merle and Daryl’s tongues.

 

* * *

 

They wipe up together. Even Merle pitches in – Rick wasn’t expecting him to, but supposes if this is going to be a regular fixture then Merle might be willing to pull his weight. Tissues aren’t exactly easy to come by, so he and Daryl always keep a rusted bucket and a cloth nearby. Between the three of them, they make short work of mopping the small cell clean.

It doesn’t seem claustrophobic anymore. More… comfy. Rick smiles to himself. Ought to see about looting a Welcome mat.

He pauses in his mechanical circling of cloth over stubborn stain, Merle working with lazy diligence besides him. The running commentary’s surprisingly easy to tune out – you just have to disengage yourself from the inevitable slurs and insults and nod along. Radio static. White noise.

Rick rests his wrist against his forehead, reliving that perfect last moment as the brothers shared his load. And glances up to see Daryl, standing above Merle with a very thoughtful look on his face, swilling wax around the crater of the last half-melted candle that’s to be extinguished and packed away for next time.

…What was it Merle had said, about them hurting him _just the way they liked?_

Daryl catches Rick’s gaze. He quirks a small smile. Then puts a finger to his lips, winks, and blows the candle out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please comment!! It'll motivate me to work on Daryl's vengeance. >:3**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A little bit of plot, a lot of porn.**

Perhaps _lionesses_ is an apt word after all. They’re the hunters, the predators, the prowling carnivores that stalk through the night and return blood-spattered and grinning, does slung whole over their shoulders. Rick, before whom the leaking corpses are lowered, is struck by a primal burst of lust. And pride: pride for _his_ pride, which is exactly what these lion-men are.

The does’ necks flop in boneless plasticity, limpid eyes misted in death. He nods his approval. The brothers’ glee is tangible, albeit in different ways; worn bold and brash in Merle’s wolfish grin, understated but no less potent on Daryl, whose lip tweaks up an uncalculated centimetre.

“Enjoy, Officer Friendly,” Merle singsongs. He shoots him a mock salute before loping off with brother in tow.

Daryl, arm slung low on Merle’s waist, twists at the hips to give Rick a low-browed look. Tonight, it says.

Rick’s throat dries. His knife skids where it’s peeling back the deer hides from the shoulder, narrowly avoiding gouging his thumb, and his cock twitches in his pants even as the oblivious older Dixon swaggers across the central atrium, swearing the usual morning greeting to Glenn, Maggie and Michonne. The distaste on their faces is unanimous. But when Rick catches Michonne’s clever dark eyes passing between them, Daryl to Merle to Rick and back again, he’s met only with deliberation, followed by a sharp nod.

One person respects that he’s doing this to keep their group united. That his choice to partake in both Dixons equally is born of selfless necessity rather than desire. Now, if only Rick could convince himself of the same.

 

* * *

 

Night can’t come soon enough.

Rick spends the day with Carl and Judith. He enjoys it. It’s a slow and relaxed morning: languid-hot, air dry when it hits the back of the throat. Perfect for picking off walkers from the guard tower. Rick teaches Carl to steady his shot while Judith gurgles happily in the background, swaddled in an old shirt and sucking on a well-gummed baby toy. He feels like he’s where he’s needed. Where he’s wanted. Where he’s meant to be.

But then he thinks of that first night when Daryl had taken Merle on the other side of the door, and Rick had stormed away with lust and rage gnawing on his brain in indistinguishable fervor. His arm wobbles and his shot goes wide.

Carl grins, a rare sight nowadays. He giggles like the child he is. “Nice one dad,” he teases, as the walker continues its onwards lumber, unhinged jaw hanging like that of a swallowing python. Rick snorts and pegs it in the brain. He hands the rifle over, scrumpling Carl’s hair as he scrambles facedown on the wooden boards. The hat, for once, is resting besides him – relinquished at Rick’s command when sweat from the browband began to blur the boy’s vision.

“Show me you can do it better,” Rick orders, and stands behind Carl with arms crossed until he’s satisfied. It’s almost enough to keep his mind from wandering. Almost. There’s an unknown promise waiting for when he taps out for the day, and all Rick can do is trust that he’ll receive his fill of debauchery.

”Look dad!” Carl kicks his shin in glee as the walker bowls over itself, a limp ragdoll roly-poly of rotten flesh and jutting bone. “Headshot, first try!” Rick quirks a grin.

”Nice one,” he echoes, and means it.

 

* * *

 

The brothers wait for him in darkness. Rick doesn’t realize they’re there until Daryl strikes a match, touches it to the candlewick, smirks at him ghoulishly and unfolds like a fern in daylight.

He swills the candle until the wax is good and liquid. Rick stands in the doorway, entranced at the rum-gold play of fire across his stubble and bare chest. He’s so busy staring that the fingers toying with his zipper make him jump – as does Merle’s devilish laugh, and the “boo” that’s muttered directly over his stiffening cock.

Rick figures this is it, that he’s gonna get another blowjob. He’s not complaining. He puts a steadying hand on Merle’s chin, making to peel his mouth open and fuck on in – but Daryl interrupts by leaning over his kneeling brother and pouring a glossy hot-white stream down his spine. Merle’s teeth clack. Rick jerks his prick away just in time.

“What the hell?” he asks Daryl. Daryl shrugs. He pushes Merle’s head to hang between his shoulders, hooking him by the belt loops and tugging his brother into an arching hand-and-knees crawl. Merle growls the whole way, but submits with the perfect feral nativeness of a male hyena. With one hand, balancing is difficult – but Merle’s got the muscle mass to compromise, and redistributes his weight between the three points of gravity he has remaining.

Daryl waits until he’s settled. Then props the candle on his spine, over the droplet that’s solidified at its small.

“Stay,” he says. He traces that waxy trail, down to the candle and back again, and pats his head in condescending reward when Merle petrifies as if he’s carved from fire-kissed marble.

Until Daryl spanks him. Three sharp cracks rock him helplessly onto his good arm, fingers splayed wide for balance. The candle rocks and sways and wax slops and Merle twitches into the heat as much as he does against it, and it’s going to _fall_ …

Daryl grabs the candle.

That tongue of flame quivers, but doesn’t lick Merle’s bare flesh. And Rick realizes that even when it tilted, Merle hadn’t flinched or rolled to get away.

Looking down, Rick can count the scars on Merle’s back. There’s easily as many there as crisscross Daryl’s hide, and he wonders if this is a way of taking back pain as pleasure, redefining what their father stole away. Then decides that it isn’t his business, and Merle’d bite him somewhere painful if he asked.

“Here,” says Daryl, patting his brother’s rump. He digs his fingers into the swell just visible above his low-slung waistline. “You fuck him here.”

Merle quivers as if he feels Rick’s flesh in him already. “C’mon, pig. Betchu been waitin’ for this some time. Wanna fuck me, plow me, make me _beg_ …”

Rick can’t tell if the words are for his benefit or Merle’s own. Judging by the miniscule twitches of the man’s hips, which buck rearwards as if impaling themselves onto an imaginary length, it’s both. He nuzzles Rick’s crotch, shameless and wanton, and Rick awkwardly nudges him away so he can position himself where Daryl demands.

“Um. Sure,” he says.

Merle’s left untethered as Daryl walks to his front and Rick takes his place behind him. Once there, Rick makes first contact, tracing the thick muscle of Merle’s lower back and relishing the power contained there. He glances at Daryl from under his lashes, needing to know if he’s allowed to sink himself in Merle’s willing, up-tilted ass. “Can I -?”

“Grab a candle first.” Merle opens his mouth to protest. But Daryl shoves his crotch bruisingly hard against his mouth, rubbing the rough jean-fabric until his lip splits and bleeds, effectively gagging him with denim-clad meat. “You, shut up.”

The candle is warm and smooth where Rick grips it, curling softly towards the burning wick at the top and cool and heavy at the bottom. The playful flicker of the light sends shadows shifting sylph-like across Merle’s scarred skin, and Rick has to fumble one-handed under him to wrestle with his belt fastenings. Merle snickers at his clumsiness. But Daryl’s order is reinforced – by Daryl and Rick alike. The former grips the back of his head and thrusts his trapped erection forwards, abrasive fabric skidding over Merle’s cheek; the latter finishes his struggle with the elder Dixon’s buckle, rasps his fly down, and yanks his pants so they hang stretched between his kicked-wide knees.

Light cups the curve of Merle’s ass like warm golden hands.

“Lube?” Rick breathes.

Daryl’s smirk is as expressive as Merle’s shiver. “Already got him wet for ya. Take a look.”

The sight of smeared slick greets Rick as he peels one of Merle’s cheeks back, revealing the puffy, well-stretched rim of his hole. “Fuck,” he breathes. How long has he been walking around, loose and prepped, waiting to be used for Rick’s service? He imagines Daryl pulling Merle into dark corners throughout the day, before and after they dumped their deer at his feet. Wrestling his pants low, fingering him rough and brutal. Making sure the internal muscle stayed pliant, fuckable, slick and shiny as a fresh wound.

Merle twitches when he ghosts a finger across it, already unbearably sensitized. Daryl nods in sage satisfaction.

“Thas’ the idea. Now, how’s about you heat him up some more?” He paints a freehand circle in wax. The white eclipse smooths the worst of the scarring, from where years of accumulated lashes from belts and switches have left Merle’s skin bumpy and thick.

Merle _moans_. So does Rick, rutting over that soft, giving hole. Lube slithers free, soaping his cock. It’s be easy – so easy! – to push forwards, puncture him, _spear him_ … But Rick doesn’t dare. Not without Daryl’s say-so.

He doesn’t doubt he’ll get his chance to head their little game – he is their leader, after all. However, at this moment Daryl’s eyes are coal-black with shadows as he leans into the light: demonic and depthless, seemingly without white or iris. His smile reveals the tip of a white canine.

Rick couldn’t call the shots even if he wanted to. Not when Daryl looks like that.

He makes do, ensuring Merle feels every one of his inches as they rub him open from above. This is still dominance-play, after all. Rick might be comfortable submitting to Daryl – he’s done so before, will do so again – but Merle is a wild-card, dangerous and feral, and he can only be deemed _safe_ if he’s tamed.

 _Make me beg_ , Merle said. While Rick doubts he’ll be talking as much as he usually does, given Daryl’s obvious intentions with his mouth, Rick can still having him writhing and desperate in the privacy of his mind.

That’s why, when Daryl grants permission with a regal nod, Rick positions his fat cockhead and plunges it through the muscular ring. He doesn’t advance further than the divot on the underside from where he’d been cut. Then holds, Merle shuddering as he bares the stretch and the infuriating lack of further penetration, struggling to keep his dumb mouth shut around the inevitable snark. _‘S’that all you got?’_

Rick could make him eat those words, unspoken though they are. He stifles that thought before it grows too tempting. A wax dribble singes each muscular ass-cheek, and Rick smears them with his thumb as they dry and flake from the burnt-fuchsia skin.

“Fuck,” Merle breathes.

It’s muffled by the weight of Daryl’s cock in his face. Daryl hears though. He parts Merle’s jaws, releasing them only to extract his dick. “Think I need a better way to keep you quiet, bro.”

Snarling, Merle ducks away. He spits out what are to be the last words he’s gonna say in quite some time: “If my mouth’s so goddam big, ya think yer lil’ worm’s gonna make a bit of difference?”

Rick rolls his eyes. Time to take matters in hand; while Merle sizes up his little brother, managing to look mutinous despite being on his hand and knees, Rick jams in to the root. It’s blissfully easy, tighter than a cunt but slick and soft enough that the wring as Merle startles is anything but painful.

Merle gasps. Daryl takes full advantage. Next second the redneck’s breathing through his nose, eyes glazed and wide, stuffed with cock at both ends.

Daryl doesn’t fuck too deeply, for which Merle looks in equal parts confused, grateful, and nervous. Not having to worry about a gag reflex on his end, Rick yanks his hips back against him, forcing Merle’s lips to slither rearwards until they kiss Daryl’s tip. He sinks deep, splitting him so wide he imagines he could see the outdent against Merle’s stomach if he flipped him and forced him to suck in.

“Yes,” he hisses. Then louder, when Daryl growls and tugs Merle onto him by his grip on his nape. “Yes!”

His ass muscles pulse and grab at Rick’s cock on the withdraw. Rick can’t help but squeeze Merle's cheeks, candle sitting forgotten to one side. He and Daryl saw the older man between them, onto Daryl, off of Rick, onto Rick again.

Faster and faster they go. Skin slaps skin. Lube squelches and spit slurps. Rick squishes in to the root, and Merle’s sloppy hole spasms as he’s drawn off it, clamping in futile need to slow the punishing pace, keep Rick lodged inside.

It’s a sick Newton’s cradle. Merle swings between them, limbs straining to hold his unbalanced weight. His knees skid to either side, bowing his back and lengthening his channel. Rick’s next thrust slips right through the internal ring. He pops into Merle’s innards, and the resultant bonelessness leaves him sliding limply from Daryl’s cock, trailing drool, his lone arm giving out and depositing him on the chilly stone floor.

Daryl tsks in disappointment. Merle’s face is twisted to one side – Rick can’t see it, and to be honest, his attention is elsewhere. But Daryl gets full view of his scrunched expression and bright red cheeks. The flush dips down his neck, spreading across his chest as if he’s being bathed in a vat of his own blood, and Merle’s swollen lips part in a silent gasp whenever Rick hammers into his bowel.

Ain’t no way he’s gonna be giving a decent blowjob in this state.

Daryl stills Rick with a swat at his arm. The cop’s panting and sweaty, lost in the haze of the fuck. He keeps thrusting a few seconds longer – but petrifies when Daryl glosses wax atop the hand that clutches Merle’s waist, gumming him to the bruised flesh beneath with sticky burns.

“Turn him,” Daryl growls. Then, when Rick whimpers and twitches, hand plastered to Merle and cock half-buried in his clenching ass, pours more wax on the other side, coating each of Rick’s fingers and trailing a molten white snake horizontally to kiss Merle’s tailbone and the sensitive skin of his crack. Merle’s whine is near-soundless. Without Daryl’s cock to gag him though, it’s followed by shaky, fickuck-drunk words –

“Don’t’chu rush him, baby bro. Me and Officer Friendly here’re havin’ a fine time on our lonesome.”

Rick can’t bear to prove him right. He uncouples his hands from Merle’s skin. The tack and peel of half-hard wax isn’t like any pain he’s felt before – somewhere between sticking a hand under a too-hot tap and ripping off a bandaid. It must be worse for Merle though, who shifts uncomfortably as Rick withdraws.

The wax on his waist crumbles as Rick spins him, Merle shifting himself a fraction too slow. His interference earns him a growl. But when Rick shoves Merle’s legs high over his head, lines up his prick and pierces him to the core, lube squidging around his base and smearing their tangled pubes, all complaints shudder to ragged groans.

Merle’s abdomen heaves. His cock bounces against it, pinned between his and Rick’s taut stomachs. Now he’s not tasked with holding his bodyweight, he could worm his hand between them to wrap it in a much-needed palm – but he doesn’t. Daryl hasn’t said he’s allowed to touch himself. And anyway, the cop’s fuzzy pelt is doing a damn good job of scrubbing Merle over, every time he pounds in.

Pig’s better at this than he’d expected. All rough and fierce, no _sap_ or _concern for his wellbeing_. Merle wonders why the fuck they ain’t done this sooner. Rick’s circumcized, unlike him and his brother; the bulbous knob at the tip of his cock squelches lewdly as it slips out and in, pummelling his hole near-raw. Merle feels split down the middle, wedged apart at his extremities and used like a sex-doll. It’s everything he’s ever wanted.

And it gets better. Daryl forces Rick to sit upright. The angle tugs painfully on Merle’s overstretched channel, squashing Rick into his prostate. But it allows Daryl to swing a leg over Merle’s neck and straddle his face, fondling his spit-damp cock and jerking himself to the whistle of air through his brother’s parted lips. “Keep him fucked,” he orders Rick, who’s only too eager to comply. “Well-waxed too. Want him to remember this one.”

Being the contrary shit he is, that only makes Merle more adamant to forget and greet them in the morning as if nothing’s occurred. What happens next however, will make that impossible.

Rick tilts the candle. A single translucent speck falls. It splatters on the vein displaying Merle’s racing pulse on the underside of his cock.

Merle _screams,_ and in that moment Daryl has his revenge. He forces his cock down his brother’s throat, gagging him on it, muffling the hitching, cracking sound before it’s even begun. With his lips drawn up from his teeth and his thin eyes glowing with reflected candlelight, he’s almost terrifying. Daryl kneels up, forcing Merle to tip his skull to accommodate him. Reaching behind himself he drools a white trail from Merle’s collarbones down his belly, wax glossing the hair-trail before hardening to obscure it. Then adds another spot of his own: blistering the bunched foreskin, heat soaking through to torture the flesh beneath.

Rick feels Merle’s ass clutching desperately on his cock, unsure of whether it’s regretting the intrusion or welcoming it. He sees his eyes, damp and leaking and animal-wide with pain. In a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, he places the candle on the ground so he can cup Merle’s hips and trace around to his tight-wound lower back, massaging in soothing circles.

“That’s good,” he pants. “You’re doin’ good.” Daryl snorts, to which Rick answers with a shrug. He’s not as self-conscious as he should be. Heck, embarrassment’s impossible when your dick’s being swallowed by the ass of a redneck – the same redneck who’s literally swallowing the cock of his brother, not inches away (or choking around it, which amounts to much the same thing).

Yeah, Rick doesn’t _like_ the guy. But that don’t mean he can’t offer him comfort when its needed. Not even Merle deserves to suffer – not without being praised for doing a damn decent job.

With that in mind, Rick gives Daryl a grin, and coats his index so he can map his favourite brother’s vertebrae with a smooth finger-pad. He’s accustomed to the sensation by now. But Daryl isn’t, and when Rick follows with a slow, scorching sizzle of wax over his scar-striped shoulderblades, Daryl tosses his head and fucks Merle’s throat without a care for how it spasms and shakes. His hips jerks as if he’s looking to bludgeon through to his windpipe, drown him in his seed.

In the end, it’s that image that spurs Rick to his finish.

He pulls out. His cum’s slimy and thick, erupting over Merle’s inner thighs; he pushes the tip of his cock inside once more so the last ropes are milked direct into his hole by the quivering ripples that wrack Merle’s bulky body like he’s staving off the cold. Daryl feels Merle’s throat tremble. The muffled groan pushes him to the peak. He’s a damn geyser; between him and Rick Merle’s left dribbling cum from both ends, filthy and gasping, dazed pupils engulfing his eyes.

“Think we finally shut him up?” Rick asks. His spent dick flops from the gaping pucker, followed by a long, creamy string of jizz. Merle flips him off. The effect’s somewhat lost, given how fresh-fucked he looks, but it’s the thought that counts.

When Daryl tugs him to stand and kneels behind him, glaring until Rick takes his place in front, and peels apart his sticky, wax-encrusted asscheeks to lick the jizz from his hole while Rick suckles his swollen cockhead, he buries his fingers in Rick’s thick hair and swears at the both of them until he cums. And after that…

Well, forget the zombie apocalypse. Forget the Governor; forget Woodbury; forget the trials of protecting their people and maintaining order while surviving in a time when _order_ no longer exists. The three of them could be forgiven, as they lay on the floor stinking equally of sweat and spunk and satisfaction, for thinking everything’s alright in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I'm sorry this took so long! Updates will be sporadic, depending on my mood/how busy I am. I hope you enjoyed this filthiness though. Please do leave comments! Nothing makes my day more.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I'm sorry it's so late! I've had a lot of other life-stuff going on, and a whole bunch of Guardians of the Galaxy/Cablepool plotbunnies. If you're into the Ravagers or Deadpool, you should totally check out my Write_like_an_American stuff... ;)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Dirty, dirty Dixons.**

“Y’know,” says Merle, breaking the silence of what had been until that moment a decent patrol. He purses his lips thoughtfully, ducking his brother’s smack without having to look. “S’kinda funny that we ain’t seen more biters with their junk hangin’ out.”

Rick, losing the battle to keep the squirrel he’d been aiming for in his sights, groans and lets the crossbow dip to rest. “You win,” he mutters to Daryl. “He really can’t shut up for more than fifteen minutes.” He hands him the grubby, long out-of-date twinkie they’d scrounged from beneath a dusty shelf in a picked-clean storeroom that morning: the prize over which they’d been bartering. Miraculously, the refrigeration unit had still been chugging – must have been on an internal generator. Rick’d salvaged what he could of the mechanism and nabbed the twinkie along the way. Since the moment Daryl proposed this little hunting-come-homemaking trip, Rick’d known the bribe would come in useful.

Merle, who knows nothing of their deal, frowns at Daryl’s grin. When his brother splits open the packet, tissue-thin wrapping tearing under his dirty nails, he swaggers over, barging Rick’s shoulder on the way, and holds out a palm.

“Share,” he demands. Daryl snorts. He stuffs his cheeks full, chewing noisily with an open mouth so Merle gets the perfect view of mushed candy swilling over his tongue. “Fuckin’ pansy-ass bitch; I’mma beat yer ass back into diapers… Oi, Officer Friendly! You got any more of those?“

“Sorry,” says Rick straight-faced. “Only one.”

Daryl’s snigger is drowned by the crinkle as he crumples the plastic and screws it into the dirt beneath his heel. Was a time Rick’d chew his ear off for littering, but…

…Well, there’s really no point anymore. Zombie apocalypse and all that. In another thousand years, by the time that plastic disintegrates, humanity will either have crawled up from the ashes or they’ll be long extinct. Rick glances away – back to the brother who’s swiftly turning that shade of red which precedes either a fight or a fuck, offset as his colour is by the ever-present layer of forest grime.

“I thought the whole point of this lil, uh, _arrangement_ –“ A finger jabs at him, Daryl, and Merle in turn, enunciating exactly what this ‘arrangement’ means – “Was to treat me an’ him equal? You want me to split on ya, sheriff?”

If Merle’s well-settled enough to joke about leaving over something as insignificant as candy, Rick has nothing to worry about. “Next time I find a twinkie you’re top of my list.”

Merle huffs, crossing his arms and settling back on his heels. “Good. Now pick up that damn bow again, boy. Daryl, the fuck’ve ya been teachin’ him? He’s holdin’ it all wonky.”

Daryl assesses his form with a slim hazel eye, wiping smeared cream from his lips. “Nah he ain’t. Yer just too used to guns.”

“Yeah, says the guy who never graduated from a compound to a recurve –“

“What’chu want a recurve for out here? Ya know they’re noisy as fuck…”

The bickering continues as they walk, Daryl’s answers consistently shorter and quieter than his brother’s. Rick doesn’t much care for idle conversation, but there’s no harm in it: Merle knows to keep his voice below the level that’ll draw walkers, and between the three of them they’re confident they can see off anything up to a herd.

It’s the humans they have to fear. The Governor’s retreated to Woodbury, as far as they can tell. He can’t be bothered to expend more energy staking out a bunch of fools who wronged him, not when any bout of exchanged rifle fire brings walkers to their position. Rick knows that’s a fight he has to prepare for. Even if it never actually occurs, the battle between the prison dwellers and the Woodbury militia will be a potentiality for as long as the two exist in proximity. Perhaps next summer, if tensions haven’t simmered down by then, Rick’ll evacuate his crew and head out East: make for the coast like T-Dog’d suggested on the farm.

There’s an itchy wanderlust that comes with the apocalypse. While the prison’s likely the safest haven his people are ever going to find, Rick can’t shake the niggling fear that grows on him whenever he stays in a place too long: that their sanctuary is about to come crashing on his head. But whether that crash will come by fire, walkers, or bullets, Rick can at least reassure himself that its instigator won’t be one of his rednecks.

…More brown-necks, at the moment.

Rick pulls a face. Sure, he’s used to grub. It’s a part of life now: you don’t survive as long as he has without covering yourself in your fair share of corpse-guts. But still, he does encourage his people to maintain a modicum of hygiene. Last time he took them to the river to wash the worst of the grunge from their bodies and clothes, Daryl and Merle had stood watch. And the time before that. And that. They seem perfectly at home in dirt, which is all fine and dandy – probably helps them camouflage in the forest or some such. Until you want to fuck them.

Last time Rick kissed Daryl, he had to fake a coughing fit so he didn’t gag. Merle… He doesn’t want to _think_ about Merle. At least Daryl takes care to let only miniscule amounts of Walker-gunk to splatter him when they embark on their daily purge at the Prison fence; Merle’s more prone to sauntering home soaked head to toe in half-putrid black blood. He scrapes the worst of it off, flicking fat beads from under his nails to collect with the filth from his boots on the floor – ignoring all of Carol’s protests, or answering them with middle fingers and leers. Daryl takes care not to desecrate their living space – but he’s still caked in sweat and dirt and a fair amount of dried semen, and even walking upwind that’s a pungent bouquet.

Rick just wishes he was a better actor, so he could pretend his surprise when their next turn brings them to a shaded waterbank was anything other than feigned.

“What’chu think yer doin’?” asks Merle, amused, as Rick props Daryl’s crossbow against a tree and strips his sweat-stiff shirt. It’s going to have to get a dunking with him – life after the end of the world has taught Rick that you never let an opportunity to wash clothes pass you by. His mom had always said you needed clean briefs everyday in case you got hit by a bus. Such a fate is unlikely nowadays, and finding a pair of intact boxers (let alone clean ones!) even less so. But Rick decides it’s the effort that counts. Keeping his pants on, he wades in to his knees, squatting slightly so his fingers can dimple the smooth surface.

The river’s clear. Water tugs on his pantlegs, not strong enough to sweep him off his feet. Every step summons swirls of mud that dance around his ankles like dust devils in the Arizona desert, and the babble of water over the shingle brings an unthinking smile to his lips. Rick walks beyond the shade of the bank, head turned upwards so he can bask in the warm gold light. He dunks his shirt, getting it sopping, then lashes it around his shoulders so it doesn’t float away when he immerses himself.

It’s a self-controlled baptism. Rick plunges low to the bed, nose grazing sand and shale. He opens his eyes, ignoring the sting of grit that’s been disturbed by his paddling feet, and breathes a smooth stream of bubbles, his hair floating around his head in seaweed-like mist. He exhales until his lungs have nothing left to give. Then stands.

He erupts from beneath the surface, the water distending over his head before the thin skein breaks and it all comes cascading down. Rick gasps, relishing the cool swat of breeze on his soaked flesh. He turns to his audience.

“C’mon in,” he says. Then, with a rarely-seen smirk – “The water’s fine.”

 

* * *

 

Bathing the Dixon brothers turns out to be very much like washing dogs. As in, their leap into the river is enthusiastic, as is their swimming, splashing, growling and grappling, which soon devolves into passable attempts at fratricide-by-drowning. But if Rick wants to scrape away at least the outer portions of their filthy shell, he’s gotta get them still.

“Quit it.” He tosses a cupped handful of water in Merle’s eyes. Not expecting the attack from the side, Merle sputters and loses his grip on his brother’s wet hair – giving Daryl ample opportunity to escape the hold that’s keeping him facedown in the water and kick Merle’s legs from under him.

“No fair!” Merle shakes water from his hair. Ah – it is still gunmetal grey under the dirt. “You don’t get t’tag team me. Daryl, c’mon, les’ get him –“

Rick grabs them both by the nape, dunking them hard and fast enough that they can’t retaliate. “We ain’t here to fight. Just to wash. Don’t be too noisy, Merle – else who knows what you might bring on us.”

He’s expecting snaps and snarls – at least from one of them. But he’s not expecting a synchronised streak of water to be spat into his face from either side once they’re released. “We don’t need no _bathing_ ,” says Daryl, sounding offended at the very insinuation. “We ain’t _children_.”

“Right then.” Grimacing at the mud from where he’d grabbed their filthy hair, Rick holds his slimy palms up for inspection. “You two best handle this yourself then, before we decide you stink too much to sleep indoors. I’ll be waiting on the bank when you’re done.” And he heads over, aiming for where Merle’s dropped his knife-bladed prosthetic, hauls himself out, and makes good on his word.

This turns out for the best.

After all, he’s supposed to be consistent with them. It wouldn’t do for him to go to all the effort of shepherding them into the water, only to dirty them up again because he can’t keep his cock in his pants for the duration of a bath.

Merle and Daryl are sodden. Their sleeveless vests cling to chests made lean by constant exercise and a lack of regular food. Merle’s a little stouter, Daryl a little slimmer, but they’re both cut from much the same cloth, being able to comfortably share their meagre clothes supply. With the water swilling in foamy gouts between them, hair glued to their foreheads as they splash each other, they’re almost indistinguishable; they might as well be the head and tail of a single liquid being.

Rick’s heart pumps low in his belly, cock swelling against his cool wet inseam. In the stream, things escalate as Daryl spies a stray streak of mud missed by Merle’s scrubbing, hidden in the shadow of his collarbone. Rather than thumbing it away he catches his brother by the arm and licks until all he tastes is clean skin and sweat.

“Careful baby brother,” Merle purrs, even as he tips his chin to give Daryl better access, baring the long masculine column of his throat. “Officer Friendly said wash, not fuck. Ain’t that right, Lil’ Piggy?”

Another nickname, one Rick likes even less than the last. “Do as you please,” he says with an easy shrug, settling into the ferns that shroud them in a private green grotto, hidden from the outside world and all its myriad dangers. “So long as you stay in the water. You’re not getting out of your wash that easily.”

“Hm. Think we can live with that, Darylina?” Daryl moves behind Merle, groping his chest through the wet fabric. Rick and Merle both decide to take that as a ‘yes’.

Waves lap at the brothers’ waists. The current isn’t fast enough to sweep them off their feet, but when Merle’s knees wobble as Daryl pinches his nipples, making rosy buds rise to his wandering fingertips, he almost drags the both of them down.

Rick realizes his mouth’s open when a midge buzzes too close for comfort.

Daryl continues to play with Merle’s chest, pulling the vest together at the front so his pectorals peep from either side. His chest hair’s curly and pale, oddly soft-looking, and Daryl rolls his nipples between his dirty nails until they glow almost as bright as his face. He reaches down, into the water. Grabs Merle’s cock through the saturated jeans, grinding rough wet fabric into sensitive flesh.

“Damn,” Merle breathes, reaching back to grab firm handfuls of his brother’s ass. “Dat’s good, boy. Jus’ like that…”

All Rick’s thoughts of keeping watch while the brothers wade dissolve, as Daryl pops the button through the worn hole of Merle’s fly and reaches into his pants. Swallowing, Rick moves to pull off his own and join them – but Merle’s half-slivered eyes focus on him. His smirk makes for a wicked crescent-moon, suspended as it is in his grubby face. “Ah-ah-ah, Lil’ Piggy. Thought’chu was staying on the bank. Too high’n’mighty t’play with yer dogs, that it?”

That’s not it at all. Rick opens his mouth to inform him of this – but before he can, Daryl grabs Merle’s balls and squeezes hard enough to have the older man rising onto his toes, chin thrown back as he hisses in near-silent agony.

“He’s messin’ with ya, Rick.” His quiet, measured tone brings Rick relief. What’s the first rule of dealing with Merle Dixon? Don’t ever let him get to you. Failing that; don’t let him _know_. Sure enough, Merle’s certainty in his ploy wavers when Rick shrugs and lounges sideways along the narrow beach, propping his cheek in his palm while the other lazily stirs his prick to hardness.

“That’s right, Merle,” he says. “What could be better than this? Sunny day, no Walkers, just me and my favourite dogs at the river. Only thing that could improve it? If those dogs put on a show for their master.”

Merle sniggers. “You like watching dogs fuck?” But he turns in Daryl’s embrace the moment he surrenders his hostage bollocks, wrapping one beefy stump-arm around his brother’s neck while he pries at his fly one-handed. The jean fabric is heavy and hard to manipulate while wet. Although Rick can see the shape of Daryl’s cock from the shore – can imagine what it looks like, feels like, _tastes like_ : listing right, fat from head to root, uncut and blood-bloated and salty – Merle can’t force his pants undone far enough to get it out. “Alright, Officer Friendly,” he grunts, tongue poking between his teeth as he wrestles Daryl’s zipper. Daryl doesn’t bother offering assistance, knowing he’d only be smacked away. “We’re yer mutts. But if ya ask me –“

“No one did,” says Daryl. Merle whaps his stump off the back of his head.

“- I _said_ , if ya ask me the jury’s still out on whether you’re our master or our bitch.”

Oh. Rick obviously needs to do some more self-assertion. Starting right now. “Merle. Daryl. Pants off.”

“Can’t ya see I’m busy,” Merle growls, still hunched over Daryl’s crotch. When Daryl reaches between them to take over, Merle snaps at him – literally, teeth clacking an inch from Daryl’s nose. Eventually he relents, although he does it with a scowl. Daryl hauls his pants over his bony hips and tosses them to catch in the branches of the overhead tree, within easy snatching distance. Only then does he turn his attention to appeasing his brother. He presses flush to his front, wet shirts tacking to each other, and seals Merle’s snarls with a messy kiss.

“Off,” Rick repeats before they can get distracted. This time Merle obeys. A wadded ball of wet denim smacks Rick in the face. Merle laughs – but his humour deflates when he registers the chill of the water. They’re shaded by the boughs overhead. Even in the height of summer, this patch of the river stays cool. Given that it’s been a while – possibly years – since the brothers saw their last bath, they’re not used to immersion. Goosepimples soon raise over their pasty asses. Rick nods, fighting to keep a straight face rather than submitting to his urge to leer. “Warm each other up. Don’t want your cocks shrinking.”

It’s not the cocks Merle and Daryl reach for though. Synchronized, like they share a wavelength to which Rick is only granted temporary access, they grind together in animal fervour, clutching each other’s asses hard enough to leave welts. Their erections joust just above the waterline. Stirred waves slop and slap their buttocks. Reflections gloss their muscles, making them appear to ripple.

With their vests still on – drenched and clinging to their bellies even as the cloth over their shoulders dries in the sun – the silvery crosshatch of scars on their backs isn’t visible. Rick hasn’t ordered them to remove them. There’ll be a time for playing with the brother’s comfort zones – but that can wait. For now, he’ll enjoy the view. And issue the orders, of course.

…Which gives him an idea.

“Finger each other,” he says. The words roll crude and languid from his tongue. Merle groans into Daryl’s mouth, or Daryl into Merle’s – or maybe both of them together; Rick can’t discern. They peel their sodden vests up over the curves of their asses, toes digging into the sandy bottom for purchase as they sink lower and spread their legs. There’s no request for lube. No protest; no hesitation. Just a soft gasp from one mouth that’s swallowed by another, then the same in reverse, as two sets of thick calloused fingers breach.

Rick hums to himself, satisfied. He fists his cock in lazy pumps, one hand pillowing his head, fingers tangling in drying hair. “Thassit. Good boys.”

Merle and Daryl’s vests stick together, sodden fabric squelching in time with their rhythmic rocks. Their torsos undulate like waves pulled by the tide, each reaching around the other’s obliques and over their lower backs to tease their rims. Rick can’t see their holes – more’s the pity. His view is eclipsed by the brothers’ asscheeks. But he can imagine. The roll of their brawny bodies over each other is more than arousing; when coupled with Rick’s mental image of their entrances, tugged pliant and soft, bruise-purple from regular play, it forms a quasi-fantasy, quasi-real scenario that no porno could ever compete with.

Rick lets them hear his moan, lets them know what they’re doing to him. From the rapid plunge of digits, they appreciate the encouragement.

The pair would look as symmetrical and endless as a yin-yang if it weren’t for Merle’s missing hand. His stump rests on Daryl’s shoulder, the scar bone-white and wrinkled. When Daryl kisses it, Merle tenses. Rick can see the stiffness climbing his spine, muscles squeezing one after the other, bulking out his brawny back. His fingers falter in their exploration of his brother’s hole. Daryl insists though, refusing to be denied. He licks the scar, lapping water droplets off the crinkly, tissue-paper thin skin like he’s slurping toffee from an apple. Glancing at Rick from under lowered lashes, he slots the mangled bone-stump between his lips.

Merle jerks away. Daryl has to yank his fingers from his ass to avoid spraining his wrist. But he doesn’t let their point of contact break completely. Instead, he hooks Merle’s neck and crowds him forwards, against his chest, spinning the pair so he faces Rick rather than the both of them standing side on. Grabbing Merle’s ass, he pulls the mounds apart, wincing at the teeth that sink into his shoulder but refusing to be dissuaded. He gives Rick his first clear glimpse of the hole he’d sunk into the week before, bottoming out in plush velvet.

The memory of that night has saliva flooding his mouth. He has to wipe his jaw as Daryl props fingers on either side of Merle’s rim, stretching until his brother’s wet pink internals gape.

And they are _wet._

Merle shivers as cold water splashes deeper into his innards than it’s ever gone without aid of an enema. It must feel like getting rimmed by a million chilly tongues. The riverwater laps inside him, penetrating further and further as his anal muscles struggle to clamp. They only wind up sucking more in. With Daryl’s hands keeping him stretched, two fingers propped on either side of the straining, shiny pucker, Merle can do fuck-all but stand there and take his humiliation. Although, if the heavy balls dangling between his spread legs are any indication, he’s not adverse to this.

Rick pumps faster, bunching the skin around the head of his cock. He savours the power play, the provocative glimpse of the younger Dixon’s darkness. Daryl watches him with wicked eyes. He’s sinful as a succubus. Merle effectively hides his body from Rick’s view, but the mere thought of Daryl’s tight furl, flowering around Merle’s dabbling digits, makes pleasure sizzle through Rick’s abdomen. Pushing into his brother’s ministrations, Daryl pries Merle wider.

“Filthy fucker’s probably still got some of yer cum up there.”

Oh God. That thought should not be so hot. If Rick believed in hell, the jump of his cock at those words would punch his ticket right there and then: single, no return.

Merle growls against his baby brother’s jugular, worrying his earlobe. “Don’t worry, piggie,” he pants, arching best he can. “Y’all can fill up ol’ Merle again soon enough.”

Angling on his tiptoes, he manages to get his hole above the surface, preventing any more liquid from slopping in. Daryl notices. He removes the hands that’re pronging Merle open like a speculum, clinging to his brother’s shoulders instead as Merle digs his own fingers deep inside him. Merle ain’t elastic enough to pop back to a pucker right away. But the noise he makes as his belly gurgles, viscera straining against the watery load, has Rick gasping. He digs his nails into his urethra, staving off the orgasm with pain.

“Daryl,” he says. “Your turn.”

Daryl nods, brisk and controlled. It takes him a minute to untangle from his brother. Once he’s alone, Merle lowers himself off his toes, standing flat-footed; then sinks further still, kneeling on the riverbed. His face is magnificent red. No doubt all that water’s started to leak out again. That sensation – that tickling, voiding release – will keep him busy while Rick turns his attentions on the younger brother.

Daryl wades from the brook, unhindered by the rush of the current. He mounts the bank with a single bound. He’s bare from the waist down, gloriously so. Like a forest nymph, an Adonis, a satyr-like pan creature who’s as hungry for sex as he is for the hunt, the chase, the kill. His cock smacks off each thigh, as he strides over to Rick and straddles him. Rivulets trail the length of his back. They splatter over Rick’s heated meat like April rain. Rick grasps his calves, marvelling at the power parcelled by skin and damp leg hair, and groans in ineloquent lust.

He loves this. Every part of it. Daryl’s eyes, so deep and bottomless that Rick could drown in them. Daryl’s lips, a little chipped from the dry summer heat, which trail along the tendon in his throat and dot butterfly-quick pecks around his pulse. Even Daryl’s pubes, which hang as scraggly and tangled as the hair on his head. They seem to have absorbed half the river. Enough certainly drips on Rick’s crotch, making his efforts at drying his pants redundant.

He shoots Daryl a half-hearted scowl. Daryl smirks and moves in for a proper kiss.

He must’ve swallowed some water during his and Merle’s tussling. Because he doesn’t taste nearly so awful anymore. In fact, thinks Rick as Merle jealously hauls himself out and flings himself to lounge at Rick’s side, letting Rick explore between his legs while Daryl takes over the rubbing of Rick’s cock, this is the complete opposite of awful; the furthest from it he’s ever known.

It gets better when Rick finds Merle’s entrance. He penetrates him with breathtaking ease. There’s a yip and a snarl, a surprised clench. Then Merle grinds down, almost dislocating Rick’s knuckles in his greed. Daryl chuckles, chesty and low. Rick’s prick bobs higher at the sound of it. That throb is met by passes of Daryl’s river-chilly hands. He smears Rick’s precum up, down, up again, rubbing his ass and cock over Rick’s thigh, leaving streaks of water and grime and thick, musky scent. “Careful brother. Don’t wanna make that overused hole of yer’s so loose it can’t squeeze us no more.”

Merle holds his middle finger aloft. “Like yer any better, Darylina” he snipes, tossing a leg over Rick’s lap to open himself further for business. The limb is as chilled and soaked as the rest of him – bar his innards, which run hot as a furnace. Fingering him’s like dipping your hand in an oven. “Heck, if ya like my stump so much, I bet I could fit it in ya with a bit of practice.”

“Only if I can put my fist in ya first.”

“Or,” says Rick, cutting through the burgeoning banter. He adds a third finger to the pair wriggling around Merle’s slippery channel. Then holds out his other hand, making a scout’s promise that has Merle sniggering and Daryl’s smile cracking to show teeth. “The two of you could warm each of mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please leave me a comment!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **SERIOUS WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER. Contains discussion of CSA (Child Sexual Abuse), underage and non-con.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **In which we get a glimpse of the Dixons' past, and it ain't pretty.**

Like it or not, they’re gonna need lube for this game. To pretend otherwise would be downright dangerous. This isn’t the cushy pre-apocalypse world that humanity thought it knew, where a sexcapade gone wrong resulted in nothing more devastating than a week down at the local hospital, a hefty bank bill, and a lot of embarrassment. Funny, to think that at one time Rick couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Of course, in those days he would never have gotten into this position to begin with. Rick had had pride, once. He’d had a wife and a son he loved, and a buddy-cop partner who always had his back.

That seems so long ago now.

Rick calls it upon himself – as usual – to be the mature one. He dumps Merle’s sodden pants on his head. Merle, busy humping himself on Rick’s fingers and whining into his brother’s mouth, barely notices, so Rick shoulders Daryl instead. Daryl’s lips break from Merle’s. Both brothers emit a high-pitched growl, a sound better suited to a startled dog than a man. When they realize the culprit they relax though, and Daryl obediently hops to his feet when Rick points at the younger Dixon’s pants, which stretch between the boughs of the overhanging tree like a thickly-wefted levi-blue spiderweb.

Merle is less inclined to forgive the interruption.

“C’mon pig,” he complains, grabbing Rick’s wrist and holding him with three digits trapped inside. His channel is oddly temperate, cooled from the shaded stream. Rick’s damp fingers make a crude sucking sound as he tries to remove them, Merle clamping up in an effort to dissuade him. His legs hook over Rick’s in a lazy wrestler’s hold. “What’s eating you? Biter catch a nibble while we weren’t lookin’?”

Rick pins Merle with his _unamused father_ stare. The discovery that it works as well on rednecks as it on moody almost-teenagers is pleasant.

Less pleasant is the realization that his almost-teenager won’t be an almost-teenager for much longer. Christ, it’ll be Carl’s thirteenth birthday in a few weeks, and Lori won’t be here to celebrate it. But if Rick lets himself dwell on that, he’ll only sink back into depression.

Merle must glimpse the creeping malcontent. He lets Rick extract his fingers, but brings them insistently to his mouth and gives them a thorough saliva-based wash. He works them over one by one, moaning obscenely, thighs rubbing and cock rocking as he sways like he’s performing a strip tease while he engulfs Rick’s digits in the hot, humid damp. It’s not the most effective wash. Merle’s mouth is dirty literally as well as figuratively. All Rick takes from that encounter are a pair of soaked and faintly sticky fingers, and a bigger hard-on than ever.

Dammit.

It’s tempting to let Merle work him off here. Or better yet, Daryl.

The younger brother sloshes from the stream, pants draped over his shoulder. He shoves the matching pair off Merle’s head once he reaches them. Merle sniggers, hooking his brother’s ankles with his one working arm. He hangs onto him, forcing Daryl to either kneel or fall. Daryl chooses the former, folding with a fond grunt. His knees gouge sand. Granules stick to wet flesh. Daryl’s palm is similarly coated; he transfers clinging damp grains to Merle’s cheeks when he cups his brother’s face, moving in for a kiss…

Rick steps in before their mouths meet. Last thing he wants is for his pet dogs to get each other dirty again, after he’s gone to the trouble of bathing them. He threads one hand into Daryl’s freshly-doused mop, the other navigating the treacherous territory of his groin. The brush of fingertips, spit-wet from Merle’s ministrations, is near-torturous. But he can’t give in. Can’t cum on their faces again. Rick won’t get it up for another couple of hours, and he wants to savour this. He’ll bear the discomfort until he can fuck the brothers thoroughly, one on each fist as he’d promised.

Which means he’s also gotta stop them rutting on each other like goddam wolves in season. “No more kissing,” he orders, wincing as he bends his erection back behind his fly. “We’re gonna head back to the prison. I’m gonna smear both of these –“ He presents his hands, one to each Dixon. “- Up with lube. Then you’re gonna have yourself a seat. Understand?”

Daryl hums, non-verbal agreement. He’s almost smiling. When the sun breaks through the trees it casts his stubbled cheeks in amber, Rick’s heart warms to look on him.

Merle is another matter. The older Dixon yawns, sand crusting the coarse stubble on his chin. Stretching his bare legs, he uses his pants as a towel, scrubbing under his pits and round his belly. He angles into a bridge to pull them on, treating his partners – lovers, fuckbuddies, whatever they are – to the sight of his blood-bloated cock. It stuffs the loose denim, making a proud little tent. Zipping up, Merle treats himself to a leisurely ball-scratch and a grin.

“Sounds like fun,” he says.

***

And fun it is.

They arrange themselves in their quarters. They haven’t passed through the communal area. Haven’t even poked a head around the door to tell their group that they’re still alive. They’re too caught up in each other and – in Rick’s case – too ashamed.

He’s barely holding things together with Carl as it is. Last thing the boy needs is to see his father shepherding a pair of fuck-hungry Dixons off to get their daily dicking. Especially not when that father boasts a boner as stiff as a crane arm.

It diminishes as they walk – thank fuck. Rick doesn’t think he’d have made the waddle back to base camp otherwise. The woods are fraught with danger, even without the Governor’s men breathing down their necks.

Oh, Rick doesn’t doubt they were watching too. The Governor wants Michonne dead, and Merle back by his side or joining her in the earth. He’s keeping his tabs. For all he claims to bear no grudge against the prison group, Rick knows that even if they agree to the Governor’s terms and hand Merle and Michonne over, they’ll still have to deal with his wrath in the long run.

But if there were any spies, they had the courtesy to watch from afar. So long as they kept quiet and didn’t interfere with Rick’s life, he wouldn’t end theirs.

***

“Good dogs need to learn to sit,” quips Merle. Daryl squats with a grunt, taking the first digit to the root. His aim’s near-perfect; Rick’s fingertip nudges his perineum before it slips inside, hard enough to make Daryl’s squinty eyes bug but not enough to hurt. “What now, Lil’ Piggie? We get a treat?”

The dog analogy may be overdone, but it still hits the mark. So thinks Rick as he pistons the three prominent fingers of his left hand in and out of Merle, so fast that his jibes melt into husky keens. He’s adopted two mutts, both beaten and abused. It’s a fairly basic set-up, psychology-wise: one’s aggressive as a result and the other withdrawn. But once you peel back those initial layers? What you find beneath is so hungry for affection that it’ll kill for it.

Daryl’s hole pinches tighter than his brother’s. It suckles at Rick’s knuckle like a baby around the mother’s teat. Given he’s the less outgoing of the two, Rick guesses he’s had fewer partners (and on that note, God, he hopes Merle’s clean). But both channels flex to accommodate him, both men squirm deliciously as Rick squeezes his second and third into Daryl a mite too fast for comfort, and both of their cocks prong for the faraway blue sky, the stars, and the prison roof between.

They sit in a row. Rick slouches with his back to the wall, hands outstretched in a Buddhist’s zen-like meditation pose. A Dixon writhes over each one, kneeling close enough for Rick to smell their breath. The arrhythmic squelches as they drive themselves over his lube-coated fingers is sweeter than any music.

Then, of course, Merle has to ruin it.

“Oh yeah,” he groans, rocking so his buttocks fill Rick’s palm. “Thassit, daddy. Fuck me good.”

Daryl freezes.

Rick notices first. It starts in Daryl’s shoulders and swoops downwards, as if every shred of tissue has ossified. He practically contracts Rick out of him, he clenches up so tight; it’s almost enough to pop his finger from the socket. Rick knows with one glance at his face – his blank face, eyes deader than a Biter’s – that now isn’t the time to push. Daryl’s not one for conversation. But his closed-off body language speaks goddam soliloquies.

Sex is off the table, and Rick wouldn’t even contemplate forcing him.

Extracting it from between Daryl’s legs, he lifts his hand to trace thin tight-pursed lips. Then reconsiders, given where that hand’s just been. He wipes off on his jeans, and instead clasps Daryl's shoulder. “Daryl,” he says. Doesn’t demand to know what’s bothering him, what switch has been flicked in that furtive yet brilliant brain. Daryl’s squinty eyes narrow further, as if he’s fighting the urge to shut them completely and hide from the world. He leans into Rick’s touch as much as he cranes away, paradoxically pulling in two directions at once. When Rick tries to brush his jaw he flinches, lids quivering closed as he loses himself in the past.

Rick feels helpless, like he’s watching Daryl fade before his eyes. “Daryl!” he hisses. Pops his other hand from Merle – who kicks him in retaliation – and, after giving it the same wipe-down treatment, cups Daryl’s face between calloused palms. When Daryl’s lashes unstick from his cheeks, he’s met with Rick’s earnest glare point-blank. There’s no escaping him. Just as Rick wants. “it’s me. I’m here.”

He’s so engrossed with Daryl’s expression – the rapid compression of his pupils, which shrink like an explosion in reverse, and the scrunching skin as lips peel from sharp white teeth – that he neglects to notice the fist rushing towards him. The blow is harder to ignore.

Rick’s thrown sideways. He cracks on the stone and crumples. His head rings, temple sizzling like he’s scorched it on an open fire, and blood bursts over his tongue.

“Holy shit, bro,” he hears Merle exclaiming. It sounds like it’s coming from far away. When Rick’s vision stops insisting that there’s two of everything, he finds Daryl warily watching his own fist, as if he hadn’t been the one to control it. There’s something awful and haunted on his face. Something Rick never wants to see again.

Merle has scrambled over from where he’d been riding Rick’s hand, as shamelessly naked as his brother. He doesn’t touch Daryl. Doesn’t even try. Like an inexperienced rider too scared to handle a spooked horse, his lone hand shakes at his side with the effort of not reaching out. He looks – heaven forbid the thought – genuinely worried.

But that passes, as all expressions of honest sentiment do when they’re worn on Merle Dixon’s face. Merle spins on Rick. His eyes harden to steel-grey slits. “What the fuck did ya do to him, pig.”

Rick doesn’t know. Rick can hardly formulate words. His brain rattles about its pan, neck stinging like he’s got whiplash. But no car-crash could ever compare with the pain of seeing Daryl flinch from him as if he’s afraid.

“I’m sorry,” he gurgles. Red stains his teeth. He must’ve bitten his tongue. “Daryl, Daryl, I’m sorry –“

“What did you do?” Merle roars. Before Rick can lurch forwards and catch Daryl in another unwanted embrace, Merle slams him against the wall. It’s a parody of the first time they kissed. Only now, rather than a playful battle for dominance, Merle’s all fight. His shoulder gouges Rick’s sternum, threatening to crush it and the organs beneath. Merle’s face pushes closed to his, livid and near-purple. “I said, _what did ya do to my brother –“_

“Stop.”

Daryl’s voice has the both of them freezing. Rick looks blearily over Merle’s heaving back, squeezing his sore head as if afraid it might crack without the pressure.

Daryl’s still examining his hand. That fist unfurls as Rick watches, long white fingers clutching air. Daryl stares at his love-lines like he’s telling his own fortune, mumbling his next words so softly that Merle and Rick have to strain to hear: “It weren’t him, idiot. It were you.”

Merle’s weight lessens a little. Rick’s ribcage creaks in relief. “What?”

“I said it were you.”

Scoff, sneer, posture. Check, check, check. Merle is anything but unpredictable. Right now, governed by fury, he’s more obvious than ever.

“How could it be me?” he spits. “Dumbass Darylina – I were on the Sheriff’s opposite side.” A finger jams under Rick’s nose. “He’s the one who done it. Whatever it is.”

“No. It wasn’t him.” Daryl raises his head: a quiet yet earnest challenge. It’s not the play-fighting they typically engage in, which has them wrestling on the floor over every alleged slight. This is the same look Daryl’d worn as he drizzled hot wax over Merle’s scars, fucked his throat raw and ordered that Rick do the same.

Merle holds Rick against the wall a few seconds longer out of sheer stubbornness. Then drops him with a snort. Rick slides down, down, all the way down. His legs concertina under him. His head lolls loose, and he suspects it’d only take a single twist to sever it entirely. “What d’you mean?” asks Merle. His sneer is confident as ever, but there’s a plastic quality to it – so notes Rick, through the daze. As if he’s feigning his brash assuredness. As if he thinks Daryl might be right.

Sure enough, Daryl’s next words bring enlightenment. “You called him ‘daddy.’”

Merle’s scowl doesn’t waver. He folds his arms, hand over stump, across his bare chest. “So fucking what?”

Rick holds his breath. He wonders if this what soldiers feel like when they tread on a landmine. Everything boils down to the choice – do you lift your foot and get it over with, or do you spend your last seconds anticipating the inevitable?

“What’s going on?” he asks. Instantly, two sizzling glares hone on him. Rick struggles to stand his ground as Merle stalks forwards, fists balled tendon-achingly tight.

“Ain’t none of yer business, pig –“

“It kinda is, if I’m the one that caused it.” Ignoring the closest Dixon, who’s breathing bullishly out his nose, veins throbbing in his forehead, Rick focuses on Daryl. “Please. I don’t wanna hurt you. Tell me what I did wrong, so I can never do it again.”

Daryl shifts so he’s sideway on. It’s a move that could be mistaken for fidgeting, were Rick not fluent in Dixon: he sees it for what it is. Daryl’s making sure he can see his exit. The heavy prison door, swung shut for privacy, now feels far too much like an incarceration. Chewing his cuticle, Daryl glances at Rick from the corner of his eye.

“Said it weren’t your fault,” he mumbles around his thumb. “Merle knows not to talk like that –“

Storming back to him, Merle smacks his hand from his mouth. “Idjit! How many times I gotta tell ya not to gnaw yer nails! An’ how many times I gotta tell ya that I’ll do what I want? I’ll say what I want, and if what I wanna say’s _daddy,_ you ain’t gonna stop me, baby brother! Not even if ya shove yer cock in my mouth like he did!”

Somehow, Rick gets the feeling he’s not the ‘he’ Merle’s referring to. The crisscross scarring that silvers the brothers’ backs takes on a new significance, one that makes bile crawl up his throat.

Merle, facing Daryl, has his back to Rick. And Rick can’t help but notice for the first time – heaven knows how he’d missed it when he’d fucked him – that those scars crawl beyond the beltline, marring the untanned muscle of Merle’s ass and thighs.

Rick flashes back to his first night alone with Daryl. Daryl insisting they wait until the sky was black as the tarmac on the road that was their bed. Daryl slapping Rick’s hands away when they groped him, afraid of what he might feel...

Rick assumed it was shyness at the time. He’d been endeared by it, in fact. But while he’s seen enough of Daryl by now to know that he boasts a set of tan-lines that match his brother’s, he’s never put much thought into how they were acquired. Daryl’s father was a shitbag; that much Rick has pieced together. But he’s never considered that his abuse might’ve ventured beyond those beatings, the evidence for which is inscribed into the Dixon brothers’ skin.

“You wanna know why?” continues Merle in a furious whisper. He’s in his brother’s face. Rather than meeting his fury like he usually does, Daryl’s cowering back, eyes darting everywhere, hunting for escape. When Merle gives him a one-handed shove he stumbles, skidding on the pile of discarded clothes. He has to windmill to keep his balance. Merle scoffs at the sight of him. “Because I ain’t no soft lil’ bitch. Not like you.”

“Ain’t a bitch,” mutters Daryl, staggering to a halt by the door. His eyes flick for the lock. But he doesn’t scarper – not yet. “You ain’t neither. We’re men, Merle. What _he_ did don’t change nothing…”

He doesn’t sound convinced. His shoulders wind and tense, so high that they swallow his neck, and he hunches into himself like a cowering turtle. Whatever horrors Merle’s dredged from their past, they’re destroying Daryl: infecting him surer than any walker-bite.

Rick wants to throw himself on Merle’s non-existent mercies. Bear the brunt of his rage. Bundle Daryl behind him, and let the meeker Dixon hide in his shadow. Yet for some reason, he finds himself petrified. It’s all he can do to watch, as the older brother sizes up the younger. Merle’s macabre smirk is like that of a dead man: stretched tight and lifeless across his skull.

“Oh? Then why’d you freak out? I just wanna relive the good ol’ days. Me and daddy, havin’ fun like we used to… Oi pig!” He addresses Rick without looking at him. “Maybe ya should whip that belt off yer pants and give me a hiding before ya fuck me? Makes it more realistic that way.” He sniggers. The mirthless sound triggers more warning sirens in Rick’s mind, joining the lingering tinnitus from his daze. “Don’tchu worry. I’ll enjoy it. Always did, from the first time daddy showed me how to take a man. Always loved it, always begged him for more. I weren’t a screamer, not like my baby bro…”

“Shut up!”

It’s so rare to hear Daryl raise his voice that for a moment, as the echoing screech recedes, Rick’s sure the world’s about to implode. When it fails to do so, he releases his breath.

He’s lost track of how long he’s held it. The air’s stale-tasting and his lungs scream almost as loud as Daryl did.

Merle’s jaw works around the remainder of his sentence. Secrets spill in silence.

Daryl shatters it when he scoops his pants from their clothes pile and makes a long-overdue exit. The door slams shut behind him, candle flames guttering. Merle and Rick are left alone in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Love me? Hate me? (Say what you want about me, all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to If You Seek Amy)**
> 
>  
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> **Ahem. Tell me below.**
> 
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> 
> ****

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, brah. I love 'em.


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